Textile-Reinforced Concrete

Mineral materials are very suitable for compressive stress, but they tend to fail under slight tension and deformation. At an early stage, hairs and vegetable fibers were added to wall plasters and mortar to reduce cracking and to increase the bearing capacity. 

The reinforcement is most efficient if it consists of long fibers in the direction of the main tensile stresses. A special reinforcement effect occurs if short fibers are distributed randomly in the matrix. Fibers are added for the following reasons  

Reinforcement of concrete with steel often causes corrosion problems. Cracks appear due to stress on the concrete. They allow a transport of humidity up to the steel armoring (Fig. 11.3). A corrosion reaction takes place in the presence of atmospheric oxygen that on the one hand reduces the working stress of the armoring and on the other hand leads to a flaking of the concrete due to the expansion of the volume. This also reduces the load capacity of the complete construction and leads to subsequent damage. 

concrete is reinforced with special textile structures such as multiaxial muiti-piy fabrics, braids, and muitiiayer woven fabrics. Glass filaments are widely used owing to their iow price. Carbon fiiaments are also used in special applications but normaiiy are too expensive a fiber material. 

Textile-reinforced concrete can be used, for example, for the production of lighter construction eiements (facade panels). This allows a smaller dimensioning of the fixing and therefore ieads to iower costs. 

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Keywords TRC, Textile Reinforced Concrete, epoxy resin, impregnated, ventilated fa9ade, sandwich fa ade... 

J. Hegger, M. Horstmann, A. Scholzen Sandwich panels with thin-walled textile reinforced concrete facings, ACI Fall Convention Puerto Rico, Published in ACI SP-251, 2007, pp. 109-123. 

Abstract. In the 60ties engineers started to combine short glass fibers with a concrete matrix. Today engineers combine endless fibers with the concrete matrix. Hence, the so called textile-reinforced concrete offers more and more opportunities to manufacture consumer goods like desks or chairs and to build face elements for houses and even load-bearing structures. This revolution is only feasible because a lot of research work has been done - into textile, into concrete, into the combination and the bonding. 

With textile-reinforced concrete (TRC) lighter, thinner and more filigree components can be realized (Fig. 1). The total thickness can be reduced down to 8 mm. Application demonstrators and innovative facade elements of new Institute buildings of the RWTH Aachen University show how these research results are implemented. The new laboratory hall of the Institute of Structural Concrete (IMB, RWTH Aachen University) as well as the new main building of the Institut fur Textiltechnik (ITA, RWTH Aachen University) are realized with elements made out of TRC. The IT A uses 590 m of sandwich elements with two thin TRC panels and a foam core in between (Fig. 2). 

U. Dilthey, M. Schleser Composite Improvement of Textile Reinforced Concrete by Polymeric Impregnation of the Textiles. In Proceedings ISPIC International Symposium Polymers in Concrete 2006, 2th-4th April 2006, University of Minho Guimaraes, Portugal, p. 185-192(2006)... 

U. Dilthey, M. Schleser, M. Moller, O. Weichold Applications of polymers in textile reinforced concrete - From the interface to construction elements. Proceedings of the 1st International RILEM Conference on Textile Reinforced Concrete, 6th-7th Sep. 2006... 

Buildtech Membrane, lightweight and massive construction, industrial and temporary construction, indoor work, hydraulic engineering, for example, textile-reinforced concrete... 

The further development of three-dimensional textiles is the main focus of current research projects in this area. Compared to the very compact reinforcement tex-tiies for composites, the textile reinforcement of cement-bonded matrices needs a more open-meshed textile structure. For economic reasons, textile structures should be arranged only in the cross sections of components in which tractive forces have to be transferred that cannot be absorbed by the concrete. Areas of compressive stress and zones with a low mechanical stress should be widely free of textiles. The advantages of textile-reinforced concrete are as follows ... 

In contrast to steel-reinforced concrete, it is possible to produce components with essentially thinner walls because the very thick concrete cover layer that is necessary against steel corrosion is no longer required. Steel-reinforced concrete needs a minimum concrete cover of 3.5 cm for corrosion prevention. This fact leads to a minimum plate thickness of 7 cm. Therefore, a thin-walled plate thickness with concrete reinforcement is not realizable when using steel. In contrast, textile-reinforced concrete structures can be as thin as 4 mm. 

Areas of application with great potential are pretailored, thin-walled concrete elements, for example, for facades, tubes, and pylons, because there steel-reinforced concrete reaches its limits. The first building where textile-reinforced concrete elements were used as outer walls is the Institut fiir Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University, Germany (Fig. 11.5). 

Figure 11.5 First building made of textile-reinforced concrete at RWTH Aachen University, Germany (Courtesy of Jorg Stanzick, Aachen)...

Taylor process 77 Tear converter 85 Technical textiles 311 Tenacity 2, 359 Textile-reinforced concrete 320 Textile testing 343 Texturing 80 Thermal bonding 212 Thermal recycling 393 Thermofixation 54 Thermosetting 54 Three-dimensional braids 222... 

J. Megger and V. Stefan, Textile reinforced concrete under biaxial loading , in M. Di Prisco, R. Felicetti, and G.A. Plizzari (eds) Fibre Reinforced Concrete- BEFiB... 

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